The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) by Arrian Read Free Book Online

mountain side. Some 1,500 were killed, but only a few captured; for most of them were too quick, and knew the country too well, to fall into their enemies’ hands. The women, however, who had followed the fighting men were all taken, together with the children and all the gear and stores.
    The booty was sent back to the coastal towns, with orders to Lysanias and Philotas 7 to dispose of it, and Alexander crossed the ridge. He then proceeded across the Haemus range to the Triballians, and arrived at the river Lyginus, three days’ march, on this route, from the Danube. His movements had been known for some timeto Syrmus, the King of the Triballians, who had taken steps accordingly, sending the women and children on to the Danube with orders to cross over to an island in the river called the Pine Tree. The neighbouring Thracians had also taken refuge on this island upon Alexander’s approach, together with Syrmus himself and his personal entourage, though the majority of the Triballians hurriedly retreated to the river from which Alexander had started the previous day.
    The moment the news of the Triballians’ move reached him, Alexander set off to engage them. He turned in his tracks, retraced his steps, and found them already occupied in pitching camp. The tribesmen, caught napping, prepared to fight in the shelter of the wood by the river, and Alexander, forming his infantry in column, advanced against them, with orders to the archers and slingers to proceed in front at the double and discharge their missiles, in the hope of drawing the enemy from the shelter of the wood into open ground. The tribesmen, once they felt the effect of the missiles, came surging forward to get to grips with the lightly armed Macedonian archers, whereupon Alexander, having succeeded in drawing them out of cover, ordered Philotas to attack their right wing, which was well ahead of the rest of them, with the cavalry from upper Macedonia. At the same time he instructed Heracleides and Sopolis to advance against the enemies’ left with the cavalry from Bottiaea and Amphipolis. The main body of infantry, preceded by the rest of his cavalry, he led against the enemy centre.
    The Triballians held their own while the fighting was at long range; but once they had felt the weight and drive of the Macedonian infantry in close order, and the cavalry, instead of shooting at them, had begun actually to ride them down in a fierce assault all over the field, they brokeand ran, in an endeavour to make their escape through the wood to the river. Three thousand were killed. Only a few of these too were taken alive, because the wood along the river-bank was very thick, and there was not enough daylight left for the Macedonians to finish the job properly. According to Ptolemy, the Macedonian losses were eleven men from the cavalry and about forty from the infantry.
    Three days after the battle Alexander reached the Danube. This river is the largest in Europe; it drains a greater tract of country than any other, and forms the frontier to the territories of some very warlike tribes. Most of them are of Celtic stock – indeed, the source of the river is in Celtic territory – the most remote being the Quadi and the Marcomanni; then, flowing east, it passes through the country of the Iazyges, a branch of the Sauromatae, of the Getae (‘the immortals’), of the Sauromatae themselves, and finally of the Scythians, where it reaches the end of its course and debouches through five mouths into the Black Sea. 8 On the river Alexander found warships awaiting him: they had come up across the Black Sea from Byzantium. 9 He manned them with heavy infantry and archers, and, sailing for the island to which the Triballians and Thracians had fled for refuge, attemptedto force a landing. Circumstances, however, were against him: the ships met with resistance at every point where they tried to run ashore; they were few in number and not strongly manned; in most places the island